Monday, October 26, 2009

I would dearly love to meet the individual who one day thought, "you know what? It would be a great idea to move the clocks back and forward an hour at an arbitrarily-designated point. That would be neato!". And I hope that when I meet this individual, I'm heavily armed.

The clueless imbecile who postulated this clearly owned neither children nor dogs when s/he/it came up with what no doubt seemed like a fantastic wheeze over a pint or thirteen of mead.

Both The Dog and The Boy wake up when it gets light. Which means they wake up an hour earlier. Which means the clock-change isn't an extra hour in bed, it's getting up an hour earlier. And remaining awake an hour longer. Which means I feel lagged, tired, blurry and borderline homicidal (or rather, more homicidal than normal).

I've heard all the reasons and excuses why this anachronism, this festering pustule on the bottom of commonsense remains in place, the best of which was that it's safer to have an extra hour of daylight in the morning as there's less risk of injury to schoolchildren when they're walking to school in the morning. What? What form of insanity is this? No parent in this country dares allow their children to walk to school any more, as we all know that if they did they'd instantly be ravished, murdered and probably eaten by gangs of roving paedophiles. So forget that one.

Another one is that it gives British farmers an extra hour of light. Why? So they can have an extra glorious hour watching the fields that aren't growing anything because of CAP subsidies? I could perhaps understand it being constituted back in the Middle Ages, when the entire population were growing their own dung, but not now when anyone who DID work in agriculture is now either running a theme park, working in a call-centre or Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall. And I don't see why everyone should suffer just because of him.

Or perhaps it's for the Scots, as they're virtually in the Arctic Circle. Well, I say tough. Having been in Ullapool in June, it's light until almost bloody midnight so the Jocks get more than their fair share of daylight. If we give them any more they'll just blow it on McEwans and deep-fried Mars Bars anyway.

Most normal people in this country work normal hours between a span of 0800 and 1800. For most people it would be infinitely preferable to have a bit of light remaining in the evening, and the feeling that you have some daylight to yourself, yet instead we still have an outdated timechange that serves absolutely nobody except a small minority that can't even clearly be defined.

Give me my daylight back, you bastards. Or I shall be forced to illuminate my world by setting anyone even remotely connected to the concept of British Summertime on fire.

2 comments:

It *is* an anachronism. The downsides *do* outweigh any conceivable benefits.

I'm also with you that I'd rather have an extra hour of daylight at the end of my working day than at the start.

Still... can you imagine it ever getting to the politicians' stuff to do list.

In a remote and decidedly perverse way, it's a shame Labour are away next year, because if we lobbied them that it discriminates against urban professionals, and panders to the rural set, they'd be all over it like herpes.

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